E.S. Gallegos

Eligio Stephen Gallegos (aka Steve) was born in NM, USA, in 1934. Of Native American, English and Irish descent, Steve was raised in the local Hispanic culture speaking both English and Spanish. A gifted craftsman he was involved in woodcarving, leatherwork, silverwork, and drawing and painting from an early age and greatly disliked the confinement and regimentation of school even though he was a intellectually gifted student.

After military service, he completed his Ph.D. in Psychology at Florida State University. He taught at Mercer University, Macon, Georgia between 1967- 1981. After fourteen years as professor of psychology in Macon, GA, Steve undertook a residency in psychotherapy in the State of Oregon and became a practicing psychotherapist. While in Oregon, Steve underwent a spiritual experience that changed him profoundly. This experience is described in The Personal Totem Pole Process (ISBN 9780944164099). He describes the experience as “spontaneously meeting the alivenesses that were rooted in my energy centers and that presented themselves primarily as animals, but they had to be approached through the knowing of the deep imagination. I realized that the teacher I had sought for my entire life was in fact deep within my imagination and had always been there.” Since then, introducing people to their own inner animals and the rediscovery of the wisdom of the imagination, has been his path in life.

For over 30 years, he has taught people how to access their wholeness through developing a relationship with their deep imagination. Steve discovered and developed the Personal Totem Pole Process® as a way of meeting the inner animals and beings of the deep imagination. Through his books and writings, he has explored many healing aspects of the deep imagination. He holds that one of our major challenges is to return to balance between the ways of knowing, so that Thinking, Sensing, Feeling and Imagery are once again fully available to each of us, both for our own growing and the world’s wholeness.